a connotation of infinity
by Spellthief
Summary: Drabbles for Fakiru Week 2013.
1. Yellow

Yellow is a good color.

Fakir likes yellow. It's the color of dandelions and sunshine and duckling feathers, of happiness and smiles and hope. It's the color of the six roses he bought from the florist on Marchen Street, which he is currently pointedly refusing to look at. In fact, right now, he is pointedly refusing to look at anything. Except, he supposes, his shoes.

Yellow is the color of friendship. In some traditions, a bouquet of yellow roses says _I want to be your friend_. Other traditions hold that yellow roses mean _jealousy _or _infidelity _or even _rejection—_

Well, it doesn't really matter. Fakir offers the flowers with a bright red face and stammers for a while, and he thinks that gets his intended meaning across.


	2. Mistake

They're supposed to be practicing, but at some point they ended up lying on the floor, just talking, about anything and everything and nothing at all.

"I've made so many mistakes," Fakir says, his voice barely even a whisper.

"Everybody makes mistakes," Duck says. She smiles, fiddling with a strand of hair that escaped his ponytail.

"I've made a lot of them," Fakir says, wincing. "I don't know how you ever forgave me."

She kisses the tip of his nose. "Because they were mistakes," she says.

For her, that's enough.


	3. Modern

One year, they take a modern dance class. She needs an elective, and he has nothing else he really needs to take, so they enroll together. The first day of class, she's all awkward and jittery. They step out to the center of the room together, and she's nothing but nerves.

Then the music starts.

Modern dance is nothing like the rigid rules of ballet. Ballet is about skill, form, _perfection. _Modern dance is about _you_. Her steps start out tenative and clumsy, but then she loses herself in the movement, every motion a whirlwind of expression.

Afterwards, face flushed, she asks how she did. For a moment, Fakir doesn't know how to answer.

He finally says, _It was your power all along. Tutu had nothing to do with it._


	4. Balance

Duck grabs the barre tightly, knuckles white, holding her breath as she wobbles on one foot. Her leg stretches out before her in an awkward attitude, trembling with the effort of keeping it aloft.

Behind her, Fakir sighs. He places one hand on her hip and whispers in her ear, "Don't clutch the barre." Very gently, he corrects her posture, murmuring advice as he does. "Keep your hips square. Shoulders straight. Pull up as tall as you can."

"You don't need to hold on to the barre so tightly," he says. One by one, he peels her fingers off the barre, until she's holding on to nothing but his hand, and then even that disappears. "You don't need it at all."


	5. Cloth

It's a rainy afternoon when Fakir comes home and announces Autor has abandoned all his things and left town, intending to take the cloth.

The first thing Duck does is express a slight sadness that Autor is abandoning his Drosselmeyer shrine. As weird as it was, she kind of liked it. Just, y'know, as a historical thing.

The second thing Duck does is ask, "Wait, what does it even mean that he's _taking the cloth?_" Fakir doesn't answer right away, and so Duck immediately conjures half a dozen answers, each crazier than the last. "Is that some kind of weird expression for becoming a weaver, or maybe a seamstress—is there a word for a male seamstress? Maybe a magician, 'cause they use cloths for tricks and stuff, don't they? Or maybe it's—oh no, wait, it's not _bad, _is it? Don't tell me it means he's really sick or dying or something!"

She realizes that Fakir is smiling now, and so she doesn't say anything more. The silence stretches out longer than she'd like, and she feels a faint blush creeping on her cheeks. Finally, he says, "He's not dying," then walks up to her and kisses the top of her head. Still smiling, he wanders off, talking about dinner preparations. Duck suggests stroganoff, and bustles off to start boiling some water.

It's a few minutes more before she realizes she _still _doesn't know what taking the cloth means.


	6. Senses

Yellow is a good color.

Duck likes yellow. It might even be her favorite color of all—along with blue and purple. And green. And red.

She knows that red roses are romantic, but she's not sure about yellow ones. Still, she doesn't much mind either way. She squeals when Fakir offers her the bouquet, and immediately buries her face in it. A rose by any other color might smell as sweet, but she _really _likes these ones.

She keeps them on her desk by the window, and the scent fills her room for days. A week later, when they've started wilting, she lifts one from the vase and plays _loves-me-loves-me-not_ on it. At the end, she has a pile of petals and the flower has confirmed what she already knew.

Oh, yes. Yellow is _definitely_ her favorite color of all.


	7. Trust

_If I was a bird_, Duck thinks, and that thought trails off into dangerous territory, so dangerous that she doesn't even really want to think about it. She has her hand on the pendant, and those words are echoing in her mind, _if I was a bird_.

She glances over to Fakir, who is fruitlessly trying to climb the wall, unable to get a good grip. She remembers the time she saw him crying, and the time he gave her bread, and just a few minutes when ago he leapt over the edge trying to protect her.

He said he didn't trust her. But here they are, working together to help Mytho, and she can't help but think that it's nice to have somebody there alongside her. And if they're going to keep working together, maybe it's for the best if she shares the whole truth with him.

She unfastens the pendant.


End file.
